


Martyr

by hellomiho



Series: Lysandra becomes Aelin AU [1]
Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, I love angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 00:45:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18954490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellomiho/pseuds/hellomiho
Summary: For Terrasen, Aelin is willing to do anything. For Aelin, Lysandra is willing to do anything.





	Martyr

It takes three days for Lysandra to come around. Three precious days that they cannot afford.

The three days after they first receive news of Erawan’s methodical decimation of Eyllwe begin with chaos and then grows into a grim silence. This is war -they had expected casualties- but the utter destruction wrought upon the formerly lush and prosperous country is devastating.

Aelin had taken it the hardest, almost too jaded now to spill tears, and she had been filled with a burning and pressing need for vengeance. But it had been a broken Aelin that had approached Lysandra alone. 

_ “Erawan needs to be destroyed now. We don’t have any more time.” _

And Lysandra doesn’t quite know what to do. This is her  _ Queen _ , asking, not ordering, her for her service. This is her  _ friend  _ asking for her help. This is  _ Aelin  _ needing Lysandra.

So she spends those three days, transformed into various different animals, trying to figure out just how far she is willing to go. She stares at Aedion and feels her heart break at that burgeoning friendship they had only just started, the romance that had never stood a chance of seeing the light of day. She watches Rowan watch Aelin, with the utmost love and adoration she never thought she’d be able to find for herself again 

And Lysandra decides.

She returns to Aelin, her answer apparent in her unwavering, emerald eyes. And Aelin looks back at her, eyes burning with warmth and regret. Because she had known what she was asking of her. 

Lysandra must die in order for Aelin to be resurrected.

* * *

 

The others will not understand but Lysandra and Aelin are two sides of the same coin.

Two orphaned girls (for Lysandra might as well not have a mother) who were ripped from everything they knew and relentlessly broken until their former masters molded them into beautiful and dazzling weapons.  

Even still, it’s hard.

Lysandra had taken on Aelin’s guise before, in Skull’s Bay, and it had been all too clear that an identical visual was not enough. Knowing Aelin is one thing, but becoming Aelin is entirely different. 

She practices day in and day out, smirking and making biting remarks, until finally Aelin’s skin feels natural to her and her own skin feels strange and foreign (and well, her true face was long gone anyway). Aelin tells her everything, every last detail of all the things she’s done and the plans she’s made, and it’s too much because they can’t even risk writing it all down.

But Lysandra has endured worse and there is  _ no time _ so she clears her head of everything she no longer needs and fills it with Aelin’s memories. 

She stares at Aelin’s body and commits every mark and scar to memory so she can replicate them. The tattoos are infuriatingly intricate but she finally manages to reproduce them on her back because  _ he _ will know if there is even one detail off about them. 

Once Aelin can barely tell the difference between them, they move onto Lysandra’s death.

* * *

 

The day of Lysandra’s death is annoyingly auspicious, with the sun peering out from a beautiful sky peppered with clouds here and there. 

Lysandra transforms on the ship’s deck, in plain view of everyone, into a gull of a species that’s frequently seen littering the horizon of the sea. She’s off for a cursory scouting of Erawan’s forces, with orders to only observe and not engage. 

She’s done this tens of times before for them so no one is particularly worried (except for Aedion). 

Once she’s flown off into the distance, far enough away that no one on the ship can see her, Lysandra transforms into a petrel and idly flies around until the sun begins to set. Then, she easily captures one of the gulls flying around her in her claws and carefully makes her way back to the ship. 

It is only when Aelin is alone on the deck that Lysandra drops down and shifts back into herself. With quick, nimble actions, they stab the gull in its heart with an arrow.

Their hands are splattered with blood (but they’ve always been like that) and they quickly wash it off before Lysandra throws the dying gull towards the sky. It falls onto the deck with a pathetic thump, its wings half spread as if it had flown until it just could not anymore. She transforms into a small beetle then, perching on Aelin’s shoulder as Aelin lets out a scream that draws out the rest of their crew aboveboard. 

They emerge to the sight of Aelin cradling the gull she had murdered just seconds ago, and Aedion is the first to react, rushing towards the bleeding bird. 

“No,” he whispers with tears in his eyes before he gives into rage, and Lysandra forces herself to look away. 

She’s supposed to be dead but her heart hurts so much.

* * *

 

They’ve finally reached this point and Lysandra is almost too numb to cry. That’s a lie. Tears leak out from her eyes and they desperately clutch each other in one last embrace. 

It’s night and they’re in one of the tiny cabins, empty except for their two bodies, a knife, and the three Wyrdkeys that emanate a heady, nauseating aura that permeates the entire space. 

Aelin is already naked, her clothes on Lysandra’s body, but Lysandra can’t bear to take on her skin as well, not yet. Not until she has to.

“You will alway be my Queen, Aelin,” she murmurs, trying to convey all of her love and affection for the woman she had once hated and competed so ferociously with.

“Thank you,” Aelin simply responds with a wobbly voice that betrays her emotions. After everything they’ve been through and all they have to face, there is no need for Aelin to hide her tears from Lysandra. They look into each other’s eyes for one last time.

There is no need for further instruction. The final steps are embedded into Lysandra’s mind and she knows she’ll have precious few seconds to do it all. 

One, seal the Wyrdmarks. Two, dispose of the body. Three, become Aelin. 

Three steps are what the fate of an entire kingdom rests on. 

Lysandra forces her tears to stop so she can be a fitting witness to Aelin’s end and she watches Aelin slice her arm in one smooth motion.

She seals the Wyrdmarks beneath Aelin as Aelin slams the three Wyrdkeys into her body.

* * *

Rowan awakes with a gasp as if emerging from water. He throws himself out of his bed, only to stagger to his knees as something irreplaceable  _ snaps _  within him.

The mating bond.

He clutches his chest in agony, as if trying to grab the remnants of the bond and bring it back by force, but it is gone and there is a gaping emptiness in his chest. It is by sheer force of will that Rowan somehow gets to his feet and blindly runs out to where he can smell Aelin. 

His mind is racing with the implication that Aelin is his mate but even that is unimportant right now.

She can’t be dead. She can’t be. His  _ Fireheart.  _

He slams into the door in his hurry, and the wooden door stands no chance against the muscles he’s exercised for hundred of years. 

And there in that tiny space, he sees his heart laid out on the floor. He sees a lifeless Aelin sprawled out against Wyrdmarks written in wine, blood trickling out from a long, neat wound in her arm. 

Rowan shakes his head in denial, his breath stolen away, and he cradles the body of the woman who had carried his very soul in her hands. It is then that he notices the faint and yet present pulse she carries and he dares not to hope, but Aelin opens her eyes and he is overcome with emotion. 

Her dazed eyes take a while before they finally focus on him with a startling sharpness to them.

“Rowan,” she whispers hoarsely in loving recognition before her throat suddenly seizes and she desperately claws at her chest with trembling hands. 

“They took it from me,” she suddenly howls, tears streaming down her cheeks, “They took it all.”

And Rowan can only hold her as she breaks down, because he himself is breaking as well. 

“I had to do it,” she says to him with an abrupt clarity that takes him by surprise, “But I couldn’t die.”

She shakes her head as a fresh wave of tears overwhelm her, “So they took everything… Our bond, my powers…  _ everything.” _

Rowan realises now, what Aelin has done in order to save Terrasen, to save them all. The enormity of her actions sinks into him and he ignores that fact that his chest is still empty, that Aelin smells different, that Aelin feels different. 

“I will not let this end us. You and I are not over,” He swears to her with fire in his eyes.

“To whatever end.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is the prequel to my other work, Sacrifice, and explains how Lysandra and Aelin were able to deceive everyone with their plan. It's an AU that takes place sometime in the later half of Empire of Storms when Aelin knows the price of banishing Erawan.
> 
> I made Erawan destroy Eyllwe and this is basically the last straw for Aelin, who decides that she needs to banish Erawan no matter what. So she and Lysandra plot it out so that as soon as Aelin dies to reforge the Gate, Lysandra seamlessly takes over. And Lysandra explains away the lack of magic, mating bond, etc as that having been the price to banish Erawan rather than her life.
> 
> Sorry if it's a bit rough around the edges. I've just had this outlined for so long that I decided to spend exactly one hour writing before I published it here.


End file.
